Rider Down

Through various means of online interaction you follow the days of people you don’t know and are invited to live the existence they choose to share with the digital ether.

A rider I never met lost their life in the most tragic of circumstances and I feel it keenly. The long rides, the sometimes curmudgeonly rant and considered opinions of this other are gone forever now. I’ll miss living that someone else’s ride life.

On hearing the news that lurching feeling in the stomach, a melancholy mood descends and I genuinely feel sadness I haven’t felt since losing a friend a long time ago.

The same night of the announcement I rode for the first time in a long while with friends who truthfully I’ve neglected. I pushed hard, tried more and though the dust flavoured endorphins helped for a few hours, thoughts turn to a man I never shared the trail with. And then my thoughts fall to those left behind to pickup the pieces and ask questions that will never be known…